RAIDS (Recently Acquired Income Deficiency Syndrome) has devastated the healthcare consulting population. Not only am I hurting for income, but even worse I am on the brink of losing my Delta Platinum Medallion status. Looks like I might drop under 100,000 miles flown this year (Oh, the pain of it). I could be facing life without free first-class upgrades.
Sure, I picked up a quick consult here and there, wrote an article (see this month’s Healthcare Informatics), and gave a talk at the X3 Summit, but no good engagements to sink my teeth into. For a month I even dropped out of the blogosphere (a sure sign of depression).
Admittedly, I need to bear some of the blame myself. I have adamantly refused to accept any engagements that included the word “re-locate” and I gracefully bailed out on a project that had “crash and burn” written all over it.
The consulting firms that usually engage me as a Subject Matter Expert have included me in a number of proposals, but the start dates keep getting pushed back. What a cruel tease.
What is it going to take to get CIOs to step off the starting block and put our industry back to work? Clearly, we are not waiting for someone to tell us what “meaningful” means. It means “meaningful,” as in improving care at reduced costs.
Lest you see this as a shameless ploy for sympathy here are a few photos from “what I did on my summer vacation:”
Kyoto, Japan
Hiking in the Sawtooth Mountains of Idaho
